Building a Culture of Innovation

(An Excerpt from “Marketing Innovation” by Nirmalya Kumar)

Ideo is a design firm based in Palo Alto. They hire people who don’t listen to you. They hire experts from whom one can learn. People are experts from the fields of social science and anthropology and many other diverse areas. They encourage people to go out onto the streets and meet the customer. That is where the real work gets done and not sitting down at the desk. There is a process which they follow called the Deep Dive process. The key elements of a Deep Dive process are the following:

a. Have a clear goal.
b. Articulate the constraints. For instance if one is building an alternative to a cart which is used in supermarkets then one can say that if the prototype does not ‘nest’ it is not a solution. This becomes a constraint.
c. Share expert knowledge. How would an anthropologist see it ! How would a mother with children view a cart which is used in the super market !
d. Brainstorm.
e. Narrow down the ideas to a few which are related to need areas like if its a cart in the supermarket, then the need areas could be convenience, safety, flexibility etc. Each team now concentrates on one need area and comes up with a prototype.
f. These prototypes are now looked at independently and the best features of them are combined to come up with the one prototype which is presented.
g. The key is trial and error and rapid prototyping to meet predetermined deadlines.

In Ideo the above tenets of culture are manifested. In the process they follow to come up with design ideas where there is no criticizing of ideas which takes place. Wild ideas are built upon. The whole process is not organized but focused chaos. The team judges the best and not a single individual. Enlightened trial and error succeeds over lone ranger genius. Being playful is encouraged. Don’t ask for permission. Go ahead and do it. If it infringes on someone else’s space or idea of propriety then ask for forgiveness. Be weird and be proud of it. There is no hierarchy. There is a lot of teamwork and time deadlines are respected. There needs to be an Ideo in every company.

Innovation : Rural or Urban?

true innovation thrived in India for centuries, because our resources were always less and so were the pressure of all the basic necessities, posh technology labs of western corporations having tons of money are wrongly denoted as the sole place of innovation, only invention is not innovation. Problems, poverty and necessity are the mother of all innovations and it is independent of the money spend behind it.

Very soon India will again prove this to the world!

But before this, one needs to understand India or any country having "India Like Conditions" (thirld world country with rapidly growing economy) has got many faces
, various sections of societies like the urban elite, the sub-urban middle class and the rural poor, along with endless variants with mix charecters of all the above three main sections. So which section is likely to innovate more? the traditionally affluent and highly educated few or the "novoeau riche" rural/sub-urban/new-migrant-to-the-city people? The answer is unknown so far. But let me remind you, for me innovation is not filing patents, it is just a way to look at old things in a new way...

Experts believe that inadequate infrastructure and that in-turn with the rural-migration problem, is linked with the lack of enterpreneurial innovation. But
lack of Infrastructure alone can not solely be held responsible for
the reason behind the rural-urban migration problem. The root of the
problem, I feel is way much deeper. Rural-urban migration of people
and resources is occurring from millennia, but has become a "problem"
only in the last century, just due to fact of a highly increased
world-population. Industrial civilization has an unified character of
its own, own identity, own culture and its own psyche. Its not
entirely correct that given all amenities of a modern city life like
air-conditioned/heated apartments / hygienic toilets/t.v, theatre and
entertainment facilities and health care amenities,to a common
urbanite from Mumbai, Rio-De-Janeiro or Beijing, would agree to
relocate of to a rural/lesser know work-life habitat, given that
his/her job/work still remains the same as before. Actually, the rural
urban problem is more of an cultural problem, which largely persists
in middle and lower-middle class families of developing economies of
Asia, Latin America and Africa. Only enlightened few people from
well-off families would understand the negatives like pollution,high
crime rates and population pressures of a city life and would migrate
to a non-urban place to live and work. This would be natural for such
people as they must have seen their previous generations who were also
born,raised and educated to work in a city for their living. The mind
set of people from non-urban areas who seeks western life styles like
fast food and credit cards needs to be first changed, if the root
cause of rural-urban migration problem is to be seriously addressed.
Basic infrastructure in rural areas in India would be much improved
within 2020, but would the mindset of an well educated and
sophisticated engineer from Bangalore change by 2020 for relocation to
a rural place for a good paying job? I am doubtful about that. The
solution for this problem might exist in reviving primary and middle
school level western educational systems to an upgraded variety of a
more holistic and spiritual vessel of imparting knowledge . Probably
a only a child can be sensitized about a contemporary global culture
of humane values.

Lastly, mass psychology and cultural preferences of common people are
more important than governmental policies and trade activities for a
"true" peaceful and sustainable development.

Happiness (as in Marriage) leads to Intellectual Capital!

Happiness leads to intellectuality or the pursuit of happiness leads to intellctual activities, thereby in a way, creating an unit of Intellectual Capitalism. The converse of this which is pursuit of Intellectual activities, on the other hand also, creates happiness, but this happiness could be existing within the concerned intellectual or otherwise it could be residing else where as well. Anyway, recently I got married and I became very happy along with getting exposed to a whole lot of new feelings, which included the feeling of being more knowledgable and being more wise. To get a person in your life is the greatest gift of your life and so knowing him or her is the greatest knowledge of your life.